When thinking about small town USA, New York City is not the first place that comes to mind. However, if you go a bit beyond its main grid and squint ever so slightly, the stretch of Hudson Street running through the West Village is more apple pie than Big Apple. WALKSEE From Leroy to Gaansevort Streets, Hudson Street is a mix of row houses, small commercial buildings and a hodgepodge of apartment houses. There are [...]
Ah, Fifth Avenue in December: all the beautiful decorations, the shopping, the holiday cheer. Oh, and, don’t forget the tourist crowds – lots and lots of them. Welcome to Christmastime in New York City. No doubts about it, with so much hustle-bustle you’ll work up a Santa-sized appetite. Here’s a bit of elven magic to satisfy your What-to-See and Where-to-Eat hunger along the Christmas-resplendent Fifth Avenue retail strip. WALKSEE With the holidays in full force a [...]
For a time the best thing about Philadelphia was New York. Well unbuckle your seat belts for a stop in these colonial environs – in the world of the arts, design and dines the city of Brotherly Love is making a revolutionary comeback. WALKSEE There’s no shortage of sights in Philadelphia. Get on the super highway of architecture and art that is The Museum Parkway District and make your first stop at the Fairmount, the [...]
Broadway: bright lights, big box retailers and don’t forget the tourists, and plenty of them. Not your ideal for a city stroll? Then skip over Broadway’s crowded sidewalks in Midtown and Soho and head to NoMAD, the quadrant of blocks North of MADison Square Park. WALKSEE Herald Square may be a “crossroads of the world” intersection but best to just pass through the flocks of aimless tourists, Penn Station commuters and the less-than-chic elements settled into [...]
In Amsterdam’s city centre, turn off the tourist thoroughfare that is the Leidsestraat to take your time in the “Nines”. You’re in for a game of engagement with the board-of-sorts formed by the 9 streets connecting the Prinsengracht, Keizerstraat, Herengracht and Singel canals. Tic-tac toe? Well, not really but with “DE 9 STRAATJES” (“The Nine Streets”), think waterways with charmed bridges, boats, bicycles, and an alarmingly beautiful concentration of storybook gabled houses. WALKSEE It’s Amsterdam [...]
Ah, the athletics of it all in getting to the Olympic games: the airports, the buses snarled thorough London’s narrow medieval streets and the Underground, a web of subways burrowed underneath the city that, even on a non-Olympic summer day swells to capacity with locals and tourists. Phewww, am I working up an appetite! The games are starting and it’s time to find some Olympic eats! Ahead of competing in the trials of the Eatathon [...]
Sir Hans Sloane, botanist, collector of curiosities and physician. Sir Hans Sloane, land baron and aristocrat. The former is represented by a legacy to the British and Natural History museums, the latter by all the Sloanes: Square, Street and Gardens and, all the Hans’: Street, Place, Crescent and Road that mark London’s most expensive residential postal codes. To all this we owe Sir Hans and then then some….his foray into cocoa led to the transformation [...]
There’s not much to the start of Valencia Street. Lots of down-and-out folks in the Mission – a mix of homeless people, ne’er-do-wells and addicts – who straggle around though, largely to no ill-effect like you might encounter in some of the more unsavory parts of SOMA and the Tenderloin. This fringe element adds to the streets cool vibe and is more testament to the enduring gritty character of an urban area that, for the [...]
With amazing city views from a multitudes of angles, Gotham’s beauty abounds on your stroll along the HIGH LINE. Urban landscape architecture is at its best in this elevated park that stretches from the uber upscale boutiques of the Meatpacking District to the former garages and warehouses of the no-mans-land (at least for now) at the High Line’s present terminus at 30th Street (the third section leading up to 34th street is under development). What’s [...]
Phew, those cinema-gorilla views at the EMPIRE STATE BUILDING sure can leave you hungry. Luckily, your oh-so close to KOREA WAY, the one block stretch of 32nd Street between Broadway and 5th Avenue in New York City. Lots of hustle bustle crowds keep you moving along busy sidewalks packed with locals and tourists. A few banks, hotels and commercial shops round off a slew of restaurants, many of which are open around the clock. From [...]
